See in appendix at end.
from £60 to £90 per acre (varying with the rate of exchange) has been paid for nearly thirty years? Should this be forcibly expropriated at one fourth of its cost to the owner, when no portion of ground, between it and the Town, at the same distance from the sea, could be obtained at less than four to five times the rate?
25. Your Lordship will notice that no plan is attached to the Crown Lease This is readily explained by the fact that in the earlier days of the Colony the Surveyor General had no sufficient staff to prepare the numerous plans which were required. On the 25th June 1861, when Lot No. 671 was first submitted to auction, no less than 136 Lots of ground were included in the list. Instead therefore of attaching separate and distinct plans to the Leases, the Sale Plan, signed by the Governor and the Surveyor General, was deposited in the Land office, and in this case numbered 48. These plans have always been preserved, among the archives of the Colony, with the greatest care, and are constantly referred to as authoritative evidence in cases of any doubt as to boundaries and measurements, These sale plans therefore, althought not attached to the earlier Lonses, are regarded as if they were, and occupy the same place in the public estimation.
26. Your Lordship will observe that the road, since named Hill Street, bounding the several Lots, of which No. 671 is one, to the South, is distinctly marked in the Sale plan No. 48 of 25th June 1861.† It is there shewn as proceeding to the water side, which, it is clear, was the intention of the Government when the lots were sold. Every care was taken by the purchaser, but there was only one assistant în the Surveyor General's office, most of the surveying being done by a Chinaman, and it was impossible to get plans attached to Crown Leases.
27. Mr. J. M. Price, in his rejoinder to Mr. Sharp's Petition, has stated that it was the intention of the Public Work's Department that the road, Hill Street, should be carried over the top of the hill fifty feet high, and has embellished his report with plans elevations and sections; but, if we may trouble your Lordship again to examine the Government sale plan, it will be apparent that this idea was simply conceived by Mr. Price twenty years afterwards, as the slope of the hill or hatter of a retaining wall would have been shewn, whereas this is entirely wanting, and it is quite clear to any one accustomed to plans that the road therein delineated is represented as on the plane surface of the ground.
28. In the last plan of Hongkong prepared by Mr. Price shortly before his departure. "Hill Street is deleted and "Middle Street," no longer "Middle Street" is changed into "Queen's Road West." We feel assured however that your Lordship will perceive that there is no lack of evidence that the word "Middle "had a ineaning; and that "a public street" (Hill Street) is also destinctly named in the Lease as the Southern boundary of the Lot. It was formed for half of its length, and as a reason why the Crown Rent upon Inland Lot No. 671 should not be reduced, promises were repeatedly made, subsequently to the execution of the Lease, that Hill Street should be completed.*
29. May we ask your Lordship's gracious consideration of our most earnest request that the clear and plain promise and contract of the Hongkong Government may be fulfilled by the completion of "Hill Street" to the South of our Lots, by which the value of our property will be most materially enhanced, viz to the extent of 50 cents $ per square foot; and that the whole of the Lot No. 671 may be taken over
+ See tracing appended to the correspondence, page 10.
* See letter from Colonial Secretary No. 655 of 11th October, 1875, page 14 and subsequently.
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